A Quiet Night
by Cyberchao X
Summary: Constant bickering leads our young heroes to end up spending a lot of time in silence. Given the most likely alternative, Tyrell isn't complaining. Dawnshipping eventually. First-person from Tyrell's POV.
1. Chapter 1

**A Quiet Night  
**by Cyberchao X

A/N: Title didn't come until after I'd started writing the story the first chapter; namely at the time I decided to flip it into first-person at the time I decided to make it a multi.

Disclaimer: _Golden Sun: Dark Dawn_ and all characters within are property of Camelot. I own nothing.

I sighed. We had just set out on our journey, and already Matthew and Karis were arguing—of course. Typical of Matthew, who often had trouble communicating his feelings, and Karis, who was headstrong and at times a bit sensitive—a bit less like her father and more like a certain _other_ Jupiter Adept that had journeyed with our parents, despite the fact that even thirty years after said journey she still could pass for her mid-20s. Did all Jupiter Adepts look so young? I often wondered about who Karis's mother was. Surely she couldn't be a Jupiter Adept like her husband; Karis would look like she was 12, maybe 13 at most, instead of the gorgeous 16-year-old that stood before us. Yeah, I'll admit it; I think Karis is hot. But she's also my friend, and Matthew's my best friend, and I'm not going to be petty enough to get in between them. Unless they were referring to having a thr—_WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING? _If Karis wasn't worth breaking up a friendship over, it's definitely not worth consenting to a m-m-f love triangle for.

Once I'd calmed down my mind (to protect it from being read), I observed the argument. Matthew had started to suggest that Karis stay in the back of the party and leave the melee fighting to me and him. Karis, naturally, interrupted and said, "You don't need to _protect me, _Matthew; I can fight, too!"

"If you ever listened until the end of sentences, you'd know that I was merely saying you should stay out of _hand-to-hand combat,_ as it's not your strength. Psyenergy? That's your strength. Your Plasma magic is as nasty as anything we can produce, and your wide array of support and healing spells gives me far more confidence heading into a battle with you right behind me than I have when I'm alone or only with Tyrell. He has no healing magic at all, and I only have the weakest set, the "Cure" series. Without you, our trip would be long and torturous, scrounging up money just to get to the inns each chapter, never being able to afford the best weapons and armor because we're blowing it all on curative items."

Though I clearly believed him to be exaggerating for effect, I added, "and without your buffs, even a single tough enemy could take out all our resources." Matthew didn't bother to remind me that most such enemies use "Break" anyway.

"Yeah, yeah, I see why you need me, but…I'm not just about buffing and healing!"

"No, you're not. I never said that that was the only reason I feel more confident with you as my backup was for your support mage abilities. You are all _over_ the most skilled among us in Psyenergy, and that type of damage will definitely help in battles. …Perhaps it would've behooved me to refer to the position as "Rear Guard", watching out for and getting in battle with anything that tries to sneak up on us."

"Yes, I suppose that _would've_ been a more tactful way of putting it, but the idea is still the same," Karis said. And then she asked the big question, just one little word that changed everything: _why?_ Why did Matthew feel this way, did he protest so hard to keep Karis out of danger? Of course, it was quite obvious, to me, to our parents, and probably even Karis herself, mind reader that she is. Had she really never read Matthew's mind? Or did she merely not reciprocate and is trying to avoid the awkwardness that comes with trying to break up with a guy you haven't physically spoken to on the subject?

" '_Why?' _I should be asking you, 'why _not?_' It's only natural to want the most physically resilient members of the group to take the big blows while the others use magic to support the team. And more importantly, why would _I _want to make sure _you_ are as safe as can be?" Oh my God, was Matthew finally about to truly confess? Is this what everyone's been waiting for?

"Oh?" Karis asked, intrigued.

"It's because I…I, I, I…"

"You…what?" Karis prompted, as Matthew became dizzy from the heat—his face had turned bright red from blushing. "Oh, dear, you don't look too good. Are you coming down with something?" She measured Matthew's forehead against her own, which only made things worse.

"N…No, I'm fine. Besides, cooling a fever and getting rid of infection seem more like a job for a Mercury Adept. N-no offense."

Suddenly a gentle wind crossed his face, seeming to hang around far too long and having too little an effect on his surroundings. "None taken. It's called Fresh _Breeze_ for a reason," she said with a chuckle.

"Ah, Karis…"

"Yes…?"

"…"

Karis sighed and began to Mind Read. _That was really nice. I should really say thank you to her…oh,why can't I just say it?_

"Care to tell me what's on your mind?" she asked.

"Haven't you read it already?" he replied snidely.

"Yes, and you're welcome. I mean the _other _thing that's on your mind."

Matthew naturally went into denial mode. "You really shouldn't tease him like that, Karis," I said, picking my time to finally join in.

"Oh, but it's so much fun teasing Matthew!" she protested.

"I figured you had probably figured it out awhile ago, being that you could always just read his mind, but this is just cruel."

"Yeah, well…" she trailed off in a pout. Looks like it was going to be a quiet night.

* * *

CCX: And there you have it, the start of another dreaded CCX multi. Romantic tension _not_ resolved right away? Is this going to be an actual ongoing tale? One can only hope so. November 29th is the big day! (Or October 28th in Japan, and December 10th in Europe). I can hardly wait.


	2. Chapter 2

**A Quiet Night  
**by Cyberchao X

Disclaimer: _Golden Sun: Dark Dawn_ and all characters within are property of Camelot. I own nothing.

A/N: In this chapter, I discover the unfortunate limitations of first-person writing: namely, when the viewpoint character has a smaller vocabulary than the author. Therefore, I have underlined certain words or phrases added some footnotes detailing what I would've preferred to put in their place.

Also, please ignore the fact that the previous chapter contained the results of Karis reading Matthew's mind even though Tyrell had no way of knowing what she heard. Presumably he was just guessing at the _exact_ wording, since the "I should really thank her" part would have been implied by Karis's spoken "you're welcome".

…Damnit, why the hell did I decide to do a first-person fic?

* * *

While the somewhat frequent battles kept things from getting too boring and both Matthew and Karis were still talking to me, the mood started to grow uncomfortable after a few days. Finally, I confronted Matthew about this. "You know, _you're_ going to have to take the initiative to end this silence."

"…What silence?"

"You and Karis haven't spoken to each other in three days."

He thought about this. "…Yes, we have."

"No you ha—" I started to object, then stopped and facepalmed. "Grr…putting together battle plans doesn't count!" (1)

"…"

"Right. Glad we talked this over," I said sarcastically.

* * *

"Hey, Karis?"

"Yes, Tyrell?"

"I'm kind of getting tired of this…whatever this is going on between you and Matthew."

"…You're going to have to be a little more specific."

"You haven't talked outside of battle in three days."

"Of course. You, unlike Matthew, cannot _stand_ when things are too quiet," Karis teased.

"That's not it at all!" I shouted, accidentally (2) proving her point. "It's just uncomfortable seeing you two fight like this, and…"

"We're not fighting. How can we be fighting if we're not even speaking?"

"That's _exactly_ how!" I cried out.

"Okay, Tyrell, whatever you say."

It was quite obvious that she wasn't going to take me seriously. Perhaps if I appealed to her true feelings, she'd change her mind. "You ca—"

"I don't care. Why should I care?" she replied, long before I finished asking the question.

"That's a lie and you know it. You're usually concerned (3) whenever we ask you to read _anyone's_ mind, even non-Adepts who don't, you know, _immediately know when you're doing it._ And yet you've read both Matthew's mind and mine in the past few days, and you know what? It _is_ rude. You're very unhappy."

"I'm not unhappy."

"I don't need to be able to read minds to know that you're lying to me right now…just like I didn't need that ability to know what it was you were trying to press him to say."

"I seem to remember _that_ as being the point in time when I stopped talking to you two. Remind me why it was _you_ that I started talking to again when you were the one that pissed me off in the first place?"

"Because you weren't not talking to us out of anger; you were not talking to us out of embarrassment."

"Your grammar is horrible, Tyrell," she said, trying to hold back a laugh. Trying to change the subject. I called her on this. "Can you blame me? This isn't really a subject I want to talk about!"

"Yeah, well, maybe I have my own reasons for wanting an end to this drama."

"Like…?"

"Whatever you two are talking about can wait!" Matthew interrupted, leaving us both wondering how much he'd heard and hoping it was very little. "We've got company!"

* * *

Following the brief battle (4), I continued to speak with Karis. "You were saying that you had your own reasons?"

"Y-yeah…" I paused. "The thing is, I feel the same way about you that Matthew does. The only reason I'm not competing with him is that I can tell that it's _his _feelings that will be returned, not mine. And the two of you are my best friends…I don't want to ruin those friendships. But if you two aren't going to just _spit it out already_, I feel like it would be stupid to hold back _my_ feelings for a relationship that's never going to come."

"…I envy you."

I was stunned. "What?"

"I don't know why I even bother reading your mind." Seeing me start to get angry, she put a hand on my shoulder and continued, "I didn't mean that as an insult. What I meant is that you always speak your mind, so there's no point in reading it because I'm going to hear it anyway."

"That's…not much better."

"I meant it as a compliment, I swear."

"Yeah, I know. You just suck at giving compliments."

"Shut up, you big meanie!" she squealed, playfully hitting me.

"Make me," I replied, grabbing both her wrists and moving around so that I was behind her. She kicked me in the shin and pushed off, freeing herself, and then…she had her arms wrapped around me and…kissed me? Wait, what the fuck is going on here?

…Okay, so it was only a kiss on the cheek, not on the lips, but still…given what I'd told her not too long before, this is definitely very strange behavior. Karis really can be quite mean at times.

She started giggling. "Does Matthew know how you feel about me?"

"Er…no, I don't think so; why do you ask?"

"Because…I think I know a way to finally get him to open up."

"By screwing me over in the process."

"I should certainly hope I don't have to go _that_ far."

"I said screwing me _OVER_, Karis, _OVER!_ Not…you're a dirty girl, you know that?"

"Yes," she replied, still giggling. Girls giggle a lot, and it's usually bad news, but it's so cute that guys don't care. "Don't worry, I promise I won't break your heart…too badly. Oh, and I'll try my hardest to fix it all up afterward!"

"I'm not sure if I want to know what that means…"

* * *

(1) I had initially spent quite some time looking for the right words, eventually settling on "strategic coordination" (I knew the word I was looking for started with "co-", but couldn't remember what it was), but then realized that if Tyrell's anything like his father, using big words would be out of character for him. Of course, if this were in a more modern setting, I'd be able to use a far more accurate phrase: "calling an audible". Because that's really what it amounts to. :-)

(2) I'd have preferred to use "inadvertantly", but again, not sure if Tyrell would know that word.

(3) apprehensive

(4) A battle scene which I probably _would_ have at least made some effort to write, despite being much better at writing dialogue, if the game were actually out. Maybe once I get going in the game, I'll come back to rewrite this. Maybe.


End file.
